Hey guys, I'm a former Zmud owner returning to mudding. I'm considering purchasing Cmud, but before I do that, mostly because I've forgotten how to set up zmud, I need a refresher in setting up the mapper function. I'm currently playing a mud called Harshlands that apparently the game doesn't recognize automatically. I saw an old post where someone was using it in harshlands, but I didn't recognize the instructions given. Also I'd like to use Cmud to map Forgotten Kingdoms, though I haven't logged in to see if the auto mapping function works for it

Anyway, my concern is that I don't create extra rooms when I bump into a zone wall or in Harshlands case, extra rooms in an area where I'm restricted from entering. And I'm hoping I can import room titles automatically. That way I can explore and not worry about move, create a title, create a description, create a road icon and repeat. Some rooms are wilderness and Harshlands is permadeath, roll new character.

Alright, the mapper will work with most games, but some of them take more work for it to understand what is happening.

First thing you would want to do is configure the mapper, from the configuration menu of the mapper.
If that doesn't start following you around out the box then you will need to add triggers to do certain commands.

Whenever you enter a directional command it is sent to the movement queue., (where the mapper things you are going to go)

#OK - confirms a movement, and updates the map
#NODIR - informs the game that you tried to go an invalid direction (or otherwise cannot currently move), and removes the expected movement from the queue.
#NOMAP - tells the mapper to ignore a given line, if it keeps trying to add extra info to a given room description that shouldnt be there
#TAG - tells the mapper which part of the room a given line is (name, description, exits, prompt)

Any time you make a trigger using one of the above commands, you should reconfigure the mapper, to ensure the new rules are properly accounted for.

Ideally, once your triggers are set up properly it will be able to recognize all the different parts of a room and edit them itself.

When you try to go in a direction that you cannot you, you're going to get a message about it. Something like "You try to go north, but can't" or "That is an invalid direction".

When that happens, quickly type "#nodir" into your command prompt. Nothing will seem to happen, but it'll tell the mapper that move failed.
If you don't, and you do something to make the mud show a room desc (such as making a valid move or looking), the mapper will add a non-existent room and muck up your map.

Now that you've entered "#nodir", reach for your mouse, select that invalid-move message, right-click and select "make trigger".
For the function of the trigger, just enter "#nodir" and the mapper will deal with that kind of bad move from then on.

You may need to add some wildcards to that triggering sting. Like replace any references to specific directions with an "*". Like "You try to go *, but can't"

You'll probably need to make lots of these for the different messages you get about not being able to move. Like "You're too tired to move" or "The guard blocks your path".

I've been moving my triggers like this to be under the map object itself, for organization.

Also consider instead of making your trigger call "#nodir" directly is to have it call a special alias or function just for that purpose. With that you could quickly change all of these triggers at once. Say have them display a giant red message to you that says "YOU CAN'T GO THAT WAY DUMMY! --Your Mapper", or increment a counter of bad moves or something.

To help the mapper map non-obvious exit to a room like where instead of n, s,e, w you type "enter secret door" without a lot of manual map editing, do this:

>enter secret door>n

That leading ">" tells the mapper you're using a special exit.
The part after it is what gets sent to the mud.
The path after the second ">" is optional, but nice - it tells the mapper where to draw the new room it's adding.